I had a couple good cries today + good news for Charlie

Today I took Charlie to see local renowned pet physiotherapist Shelly Malcolm of Pawsitive Action Physiotherapy so that she could have a look at him and his knees before he goes through his surgery next week. He's been limping on and off - which he didn't do last time when he ruptured his other Anterior cruciate ligament, which leads me to believe that he hasn't completely torn it yet, and maybe doesn't need the surgery quite yet, so I wanted to see what Shelly thought about the whole thing. The good news is that she concurs with me - she thinks that the knee isn't completely blown and is workable as it is right now. So I'm going to put off the surgery and just go with physio. I'm quite sure that Charlie would prefer ultrasound and some poking around to invasive surgery, that's for sure!

Buttercup protecting everybody in the room
Shelly giving Charlie some scratches while she's doing ultrasound. Charlie thinks that's a-okay!

I had a package come in the mail today, and when I opened it up I had a good cry. I've decided (for good or bad) that if I can't get dogs within my own view off their chains that maybe I can help some other people in Nova Scotia get dogs in their neighbourhoods off chains there - so I'm now a representative for "Dogs Deserve Better" in Nova Scotia. Because of that I got flyers and stickers in the mail today, and it included a 2007 calendar of DDB dogs - and on the front cover was this dog "Smokey".

Smokey was a dog in West Virginia who I got an email about last year who was blind, a black chow mix and had been chained and now being kept in a shed. And was there any way I could help? Me, here in Nova Scotia. But I'm also the person who does the postings for the blinddogs.com website, and a member of Dogs Deserve Better - and I know that the head of DDB has a soft spot for black chows. So I email Tammy Grimes about this dog. I have NO idea where West Virginia is in comparison to Altoona Pennsylvania. But Tammy says that - yes, she'll take this dog to foster. Without hesitation she said that. Can you imagine? So here I sit in Nova Scotia - I'm able to save this blind, chained, dirty black chow dog in West Virginia - he goes to foster in Altoona Pennsylvania with the President of Dogs Deserve Better - is renamed Smokey (I don't think he had a name before that) - he is posted on the blinddogs.com website - and his new owners find him there. And then today I open up this package and there he is on the front cover of the 2007 calendar for Dogs Deserve Better. And I had a little something to do with him.




My next cry came because I went and picked up Teddy's ashes today. That was a hard thing to do. That was hard. Let me tell you, that was a hard thing to do.